


Rebirth

by Orangistae



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Edge of Tomorrow AU, Kinda, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-08 14:59:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3213401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orangistae/pseuds/Orangistae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Steve learns that the 107th has been captured, he’s determined to rescue Bucky. He dies trying to break into the HYDRA base. </p><p>The next day, he tries again. He dies, again.</p><p>On the third day, he goes straight to Howard Stark to find out what the hell is going on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Steve wakes up. He shivers in his cot and takes a series of deep, shuddering breaths, trying to ground himself in the texture of the woolen blanket against his skin and the sounds of early morning bustle outside his tent. He’d dreamed about the procedure again, being shut inside that narrow steel chamber with Erskine’s serum blazing through his veins as it tore his body apart and rebuilt it anew, every bone and muscle screaming in agony until his mind was awash with pain and his only remaining thought was _‘this must be what dying feels like’._

But it’s all over now, Steve reminds himself, as the adrenaline ebbs away. He’d survived, the serum had worked, and he’d emerged from the machine stronger and healthier than he’d ever been before in his life. And maybe performing on stage dressed in the American flag wasn’t exactly what he’d pictured when he volunteered for the program, but Senator Brandt assures him he’s making a valuable contribution to the war effort, and it’s true that people seem to find Captain America inspiring. Steve can only hope that the soldiers like him as much as the crowds back home; he’s giving his first show in front of them in just a few hours. With that thought in mind, he pulls himself together, rolls out of his cot and starts getting ready for the day.

As it turns out, the troops _don’t_ like Captain America, they hate him. The show is a disaster, Steve gets booed off the stage, and the worst part of it is, he knows they’re right. He’s a sham, a performing monkey who’s never seen a single day of combat, and it’s with a touch of bitterness that he greets Agent Carter when she comes by afterwards. She saw the show, and she’s nice about it, but in Steve’s current mood, even kindness stings. When she tells him he’s meant for more than this, he knows it’s meant to be encouraging, but the words ring like mockery in his ears. 

All of his self-pity is forgotten, though, when he hears what happened at Azzano. Colonel Philips confirms that Bucky is among the missing men, but he dismisses Steve’s suggestion of sending a rescue mission for them, and doesn’t bother hiding his disdain. 

Well, fine, Steve thinks, coming to an abrupt decision. If the army won’t do anything, he’ll go after them himself, because the idea of abandoning Bucky and hundreds of other good men is simply intolerable, and what’s the use of being a super-soldier anyway if he can’t even save his best friend?

He storms back to the dressing room behind the stage and starts grabbing things, his prop shield, a helmet, preparing to set out for the HYDRA base on his own. Peggy tries to talk him out of it, tells him that it’s too dangerous, that Bucky’s probably already dead, but Steve doesn’t care. As long as there’s even a chance of Bucky being alive, Steve is going to do everything he can to find him and get him out of there. He reminds Peggy of her words to him earlier, and she finally seems to accept that he’s not going to change his mind. He’s just about to drive off when Peggy suggests an alternative.

 

 

Howard Stark is busy poking at a complicated-looking arrangement of copper rings and glass chambers when Steve and Peggy find him.

“Well, hello there, Agent Carter,” he says, looking up from his work. “And if it isn’t the famous Captain America. Nice costume, pal, very patriotic.”

Half an hour ago, the gibe might have bothered Steve, but there are more important things on his mind now, and he stays quiet at Peggy’s side as she asks, “Stark, do you have any plans for tonight?”

“Free as a bird,” he grins. “Why, you in the mood for some dancing? I’m a very skilled dancer, you know.”

“I’m sure,” she says drily, “but it’s actually your other skills that I’m interested in. I need you to fly a plane into Austria and drop Private Rogers off near Krausberg.”

Stark raises an eyebrow. “I thought the army had its own people to do that sort of thing.”

“The army doesn’t know about it.” 

Peggy lays out the whole situation. Steve hopes her trust in Stark is justified; a plane would certainly be useful, but if Stark decides to report them to Colonel Philips, Steve won’t have any chance of rescuing Bucky, not to mention the trouble it’d bring down on Peggy.

Once Peggy’s done explaining, Stark turns to Steve and studies him for a moment, before saying, “You know this is crazy, right?”

“I do,” Steve says. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m doing this, Stark, with or without your help.”

“Well, well, well, how about that,” Stark murmurs consideringly. He glances at the device he'd been working on when they showed up. “Guess I’ll have to wait ‘til tomorrow to check out the latest developments in klystron oscillators. When do we leave?”

 

 

Some hours later, Steve is approaching the HYDRA base, the glare of its security lights clearly visible through the trees ahead. He pauses when he gets close enough to see the tall fence encircling the compound, and the men patrolling it below. There’s a gate, which looks pretty secure, but maybe he could take out one of the guards and-

He ducks down at the sound of vehicles rumbling up the road beside him. Crouched in the darkness, he watches a convoy of covered trucks make their way towards the base, and a plan takes shape in his mind. As the last truck passes by, he darts out and jumps into the back. There are two HYDRA soldiers sitting inside, but they’re unarmed and unprepared, and Steve may not have any combat experience but he’s plenty familiar with fistfights. It’s shockingly easy to overpower them, and their unconscious bodies thump softly onto the road a few seconds before the truck pulls clear of the trees.

Steve waits quietly as the truck joins the queue at the gate and then passes through into the compound. It continues on for another minute, making a couple of turns, before backing up and coming to a stop. Steve is about to sneak a look outside to see if it’s safe for him to get out, when the canvas flap hanging over the back of the truck is lifted up, to reveal the impassive face of a HYDRA guard. They stare at each other, frozen, and then the guard raises his gun and Steve brings up his shield, but it’s no defense against the blast of blue-white energy, which punches straight through the metal prop and into Steve’s chest. His body dissolves in a blaze of agony, and everything fades into darkness.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve wakes up. He shivers in his cot and draws the blanket closer around his shoulders, but then his memories catch up with him and collide with the realization that he’s in his tent at base camp. He scrambles into a sitting position and stares around in confusion, before looking down and cautiously laying a hand against his chest. There’s not so much as a scratch in the place where he remembers getting shot, just smooth, unblemished skin and firm muscle underneath. Was it just a dream? But it was all so clear and detailed, unlike any dream Steve has ever had. On the other hand, if it was real, then how on earth did he end up back here again, alive and well? 

It doesn’t make sense, but he’s not going to get any answers by staying in bed, so he mechanically gets dressed and steps outside. Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary, everybody’s just going about their business much the same as on the previous morning. Steve spots one of the dancers from his show and goes over to talk to her, putting on what he hopes is a relaxed, cheerful expression.

“Morning, Rosie.”

“Hiya Steve,” she greets him. “Hope you got a good night’s sleep- you ready for your big debut?”

“Debut?”

“Yeah, in front of the troops, I mean. It’s your first time over here, right?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s right,” Steve mutters, his face falling. 

Rosie notices his dismay and gives him a sympathetic pat on the arm. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll knock ‘em dead,” she says. “Hey, d’you know where a girl can get some coffee around here? I know someone must’ve told me yesterday, but I was asleep on my feet when we arrived.”

Steve points her in the direction of the mess hall and she heads off in search of caffeine, leaving him just as confused as before. He’s forced to conclude that the whole experience was just an extraordinarily vivid dream, and tries to ignore the persistent sense of déjà vu that follows him around all morning. By the time he goes onstage, he’s in so much of a daze that he barely notices the soldiers’ jeering, and it’s not until Peggy mentions Azzano again that he really starts to wake up. 

“The 107th?” he repeats after her.

“What?”

“Bucky, my friend Bucky, he’s in the 107th, I have to rescue him,” Steve says urgently. He still isn’t sure what’s going on, but what he does understand is that he’s been given a second chance, and he’s not going to waste it.

“You don’t even know if he was among the men captured,” Peggy points out. “Perhaps he was one of the lucky ones- he might be somewhere in the camp right now.” 

She insists on going to Colonel Philips to find out, and he confirms that Bucky is missing, just as Steve knew he would. Steve doesn’t bother arguing this time, just goes straight to the dressing room to grab his things.

“I’m going after him,” he tells Peggy. “Will you help me?”

She raises the same objections as before, but does agree to help him in the end, and Steve is determined that this time, he’ll prove himself worthy of her belief.

 

 

Steve sneaks into the HYDRA base the same way as before, and when the guard looks into the back of the truck, he’s ready and waiting. He uses his shield to knock the man out, then makes for the main building. This turns out to be a huge factory full of unfamiliar machines and pieces of weaponry, many of which glow with the same unsettling blue light as the guard’s gun. There’s plenty of activity going on in spite of the late hour, but no one’s looking out for a lone American soldier, and Steve steals across the floor undetected. 

A conveniently deserted corridor leads him away to a side wing. It’s quieter here, and less well-lit, so it takes a moment for Steve to realize that he’s found where the prisoners are being held, in big cages on the floor below. There’s a guard on watch, but Steve surprises him by stepping out from behind a pillar; one good punch is all it takes. Seizing a ring of keys from the guard’s belt, Steve hurries down to the lower level and moves from cage to cage, releasing all of the Allied soldiers. His eyes rove from face to face, searching, but Bucky isn’t there. It’s disappointing, but Steve’s not prepared to give up hope yet. Upon questioning, an English lieutenant informs him that there’s an isolation ward where Bucky might have been taken, so he gives the men directions for how to get away, and continues on his own.

He sets off running down the main corridor, and checks every room he passes for any sign of Bucky. They’re all just offices and storerooms, though, nothing that looks like it might have been used to hold prisoners. Undaunted, he keeps going, exploring every turning and side passage, but wherever this isolation ward is, it must be in a different part of the building. 

He returns to the factory floor to find everything in chaos. The alarm has been raised, now that the former prisoners are running free, and there are HYDRA soldiers everywhere, no chance of remaining unseen. Steve spots a control room on an upper level and starts fighting his way towards it, hoping to find some clue as to Bucky’s whereabouts or at least get a better idea of the building’s layout. There’s not enough open space for the HYDRA soldiers to use their guns effectively, and none of them can match Steve in hand-to-hand combat, but they do slow him down, and he’s still several yards from the stairs when an explosion suddenly goes off behind him. He barely has time to flinch from the roar of heat before there’s another explosion, closer, and another. Steve breaks into a sprint, but now a spark appears in front of him, and, faster than he can react, it bursts up and outwards, expanding into a massive wall of flame. It slams into him like a tidal wave, and he’s swept away into darkness.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve wakes up. It’s slightly less of a shock this time, and he’s more resigned than surprised when he sticks his head out of the tent and confirms that everything is exactly the same as it was on the previous two mornings, from the overcast sky to the pattern of cigarette butts lying in the mud. 

He sits back down on his cot and tries to figure out what’s going on. It wasn’t a dream, he’s pretty sure, but what other explanation is there? He doesn’t _think_ he’s going mad; all of his thoughts are perfectly lucid, as far as he can tell, and he hasn’t noticed anything strange aside from the two days' worth of memories that apparently never happened. Maybe he died for real the first time, when he got shot with the energy gun, and now he’s in Purgatory, being punished for his sins. Steve’s always tried to do what’s right, but he can’t help the way he feels about Bucky, and he’s never been all that repentant about it, either. Still, as painful as some of this has been, it’s a far cry from the sort of thing described by the priests when he was growing up.

Thinking back to the energy gun and that first death, Steve shudders. It had been excruciating, being torn apart by the energy blast, worse than any injury or illness, worse than anything else he’d ever experienced. Well, except for the serum; it had felt like he was dying then, too. An unexpected suspicion pierces his muddled thoughts. Could the serum have something to do with this? Some sort of extra ability that Erskine failed to mention, which he gained along with his enhanced strength and healing and all the rest of it? It’s as plausible as any of the other theories he’s come up with. Of course, even if Erskine did know about it, he’s no longer around for Steve to go and ask, but there is someone else who might have some answers.

 

 

Stark is in the same spot as before, sitting at his worktable and fiddling with the copper-and-glass gadget. Steve hurries up to him and blurts, “Stark, I need to talk to you.”

“Good morning to you too, pal,” Stark says, acknowledging Steve with a glance before returning to his work. “Well, what is it?”

Steve hesitates. They’re right near the entrance to one of the big SSR command tents, and there are people bustling about all around them.

“Um. D’you think we could do this in private? Is your tent around here somewhere?”

“Sorry if this is inconvenient for you, Private Rogers, but some of us have work to do,” Stark says impatiently. “Spit it out now or come back later when I’m not so busy, your call.”

“You can work on your klystron oscillator some other time,” Steve insists. “I’m telling you, this is important.”

Stark pauses. He sets aside his wrench and tilts his head up at Steve.

“Now how does a fella like you know what a klystron oscillator looks like?”

“You told me what it was,” Steve says, trying his best to sound calm, _sane_. “Later today. The last two times I lived through today.”

Stark stares at him.

“Ho-ly shit,” he breathes, “it actually worked.”

Stark continues to gape at Steve for several seconds, then jumps up and hustles him into a nearby tent, his own sleeping tent, from the looks of it. It’s cluttered with books and all sorts of odds and ends, including a radio that Stark switches on before settling himself down on his cot. 

“Okay,” he says, leaning forward to be heard over the blare of some jazz tune, “tell me everything.” 

Steve complies, recounting everything that he remembers since waking up at base camp for the first time two days ago. Stark sits rapt with attention until Steve’s done talking, and then he lets out a low whistle.

“That is one hell of a story, Rogers.”

“I know, it’s hard to believe,” Steve says. “You do believe it, though, don’t you? So now it’s your turn- you obviously know something, you gotta tell me what’s going on.”

“Well yeah, I know _something,”_ Stark admits, “enough to convince me you’re not making this up, but don’t get too excited, ‘cause I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more than what you already know. Erskine was the one who created the serum, not me, and he kept things pretty close to his chest.

“There was this one time, though, after we’d just gotten approval to move forward with Project Rebirth. We’re down in the lab celebrating with a drink or ten, and he’s going on about how wars are won with technology, which I agree with, obviously, and we drink a toast. But he wasn’t just talking about soldiers with enhanced strength, or superior weaponry or what-have-you, he starts saying, ‘What if a soldier knew what the enemy was going to do before it happened? What if he could predict the actions of each of his opponents, every attack, every bullet? That would be a considerable advantage, would it not?’

“‘Sure, that’d be real handy,’ I say, wondering where this is going.

“And he gives me a sly smile like he’s letting me in on some big secret, and says, ‘Well- that is exactly what our super-soldiers will be able to do.’

“I almost burst out laughing, but it’s such an outrageous claim that I decide to humor him, and I say, ‘Oh yeah, how’s that? This serum of yours gonna give ‘em psychic powers?’

“‘Not quite, not quite,’ he says, ‘although it would certainly appear that way to others.’ And then he goes on and explains this idea of his, where, if things go wrong and a soldier gets himself killed, instead of dying, he resets time, goes back to the start of the day or whenever he last woke up and lives the day over again. But now the soldier already knows what’s gonna happen, so he can do things differently to try and avoid getting killed this time, and keep repeating it until he succeeds.

“It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. I mean, what Erskine’s talking about is basically time travel, you might as well throw some Martians in there to boot.

“‘How’s it supposed to work?’ I ask him. ‘What’s the mechanistic basis?’

“But he’s pretty incoherent by that point, rambling on about blood or something, I can’t make heads or tails of it, and ten minutes later he’s asleep on the floor, snoring.

“Next day, Erskine drags himself into my office with a raging hangover and apologizes for the night before. He says he always comes up with these crazy ideas when he’s drunk, but could I please keep it to myself because there’s enough skepticism about the project as it is, and he’s worried that if any of the higher-ups catch wind of this stuff about resetting time, they might start to think that all the rest of it is nonsense as well, and axe the whole thing. The man’s got a point, so I promise not to go spreading the story around, and neither of us ever brings it up again. 

“So there you have it, that’s everything I know,” Stark finishes. “I always figured it was just the whiskey talking- never crossed my mind for a second that what he was describing might actually be possible, much less that he’d succeeded.”

Steve is silent for a moment.

“Erskine never told me any of this.”

Stark shrugs. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m pretty sure he never told anyone, apart from me. He must have had his reasons. Maybe he wasn’t sure it’d work. Maybe he wanted to be absolutely certain that HYDRA wouldn’t hear about it- they’re already interested in the serum, but can you imagine if they knew it could do _this?"_

“They’d do everything they could to get their hands on me,” Steve agrees, grimacing. “Try to find out what makes me tick.”

“Damn right they would, so you’d better not let yourself get captured- better to die outright. And you can’t tell anyone else about this, either, it’d be too dangerous if rumor got out. Hell, it’d be better if you hadn’t even told me.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep my mouth shut. Nobody’d believe it, anyway.”

“Attaboy,” Stark says, slapping him on the shoulder. “So, what now? You gonna risk getting killed again over this friend of yours?”

Steve smiles wryly. 

“Third time’s the charm, right?”

 

 

Once again, Steve finds himself sneaking into the HYDRA base. Part of him had wanted to fly out immediately after talking to Stark, but they’d agreed that it would be better to wait and do everything the same as previously, so it’s nighttime as Steve slips into the factory. After setting the prisoners free, he goes straight back to the factory floor and heads for the control room he'd noticed the last time, fighting a path through the swarm of HYDRA soldiers who try to block his way. He’s almost at the top of the stairs when someone emerges from the control room and flees down an adjoining catwalk, not a soldier or a factory worker, but a little man in a suit and glasses. On a hunch, Steve decides to give chase, and ends up in a brick corridor in an unfamiliar section of the building.

There’s no one in sight, and Steve is wondering if he lost him, when the man stumbles out of a side room further along the corridor. He spots Steve, and stares at him for a long moment before scurrying away. Steve starts running after him again, but slows when he gets closer to the doorway the man came out from. There’s someone still inside, Steve can hear a voice, he _knows_ that voice. He follows it around the corner, and there, lying on an examination table in the middle of the room, is Bucky.

After everything Steve’s been through, the relief of finally finding Bucky is almost overwhelming, but relief quickly turns to alarm when he rushes over to Bucky's side and realizes what kind of state he’s in. Bucky’s eyes are blank and unseeing as he listlessly recites his rank and serial number, and there’s blood trickling out of his left ear. The implications are sickening, but there’s no time to dwell on it, Steve just needs to make sure that Bucky is okay and then get them out of here. He rips off the straps holding Bucky to the table, and reaches out to squeeze his shoulder. 

“It’s me, it’s Steve,” he says.

“Steve?”

Recognition dawns, and the glazed expression on Bucky’s face melts into a smile. It’s the most beautiful thing Steve’s ever seen. Gently, he helps Bucky to his feet and wraps a supportive arm around him, holding him close against his side as they hobble back out to the corridor.

By now, the factory floor is all ablaze. They’re safe for the moment, up on the catwalk, but they need to find a way out before the entire building burns down. Their search for an exit is cut short, however, when someone loudly hails Steve as “Captain America!”

Turning, Steve is confronted by a tall man with cruel eyes and a taunting voice who can only be Johann Schmidt. This is the bully who ordered Erskine’s murder, who must have been responsible for whatever the hell they were doing to Bucky, and Steve meant it when he told Erskine he didn’t want to kill anyone, but he’s not so sure about that anymore.

“So, Dr Erskine managed it after all,” Schmidt says as he strides forward to meet Steve in the middle of a narrow bridge spanning the flames. “Not exactly an improvement, but still- impressive.”

Steve punches him in the face.

“You have no idea.”

Schmidt staggers back. A smear of blood appears below his eye, which gives Steve a bitter thrill of satisfaction, but it doesn’t last for long because Schmidt recovers almost immediately and counters with a heavy blow that sends Steve sprawling to the ground. Erskine said the serum wasn’t ready when he gave it to Schmidt, but it must have been effective enough, because Schmidt is incredibly strong, maybe even stronger than Steve. Being the smaller guy in a fight has never stopped Steve before, though, so he just sets his jaw, picks himself up and lunges at Schmidt.

They brawl viciously, gracelessly, lurching to and fro as first one and then the other gains the advantage. Steve is vaguely aware of Bucky and the man in the glasses looking on from opposite sides of the bridge, but most of his attention is focused on Schmidt, so he’s taken by surprise when the ground starts moving beneath his feet. A gap opens up behind him as the two halves of the bridge begin to retract, and he’s on the wrong side, the distance between himself and Bucky widening every second. Never mind Schmidt, Steve needs to cross back over _now,_ while he still can. He shifts his weight in preparation to jump and focuses his gaze on Bucky, standing on the other side, eyes widening in alarm…

“Steve!” Bucky yells, but it’s too late, Schmidt is already barreling into Steve’s back, and Steve pitches forward over the end of the bridge. As he falls, arms flailing, one of his hands strikes against the floor of the walkway, and he scrabbles desperately at the metal grating before he manages to catch hold, arresting his fall with a sharp, shoulder-wrenching jolt.

For a few long breaths, Steve hangs there, deadweight, unconscious of anything beyond the thunder of his heartbeat and the hard edge of the walkway beneath his hand. Once the initial panic starts to subside, he reaches his other hand up as well, securing his grip and easing the strain on his shoulder, but now he begins to register just how perilous his situation still is, dangling high above the flames, separated from Bucky and utterly at Schmidt’s mercy.

“How very disappointing,” Schmidt proclaims, sneering down at Steve. “It is hardly a surprise that Erskine was unable to match his first and greatest success, but I admit, I was expecting more of a challenge. What a waste, to have given up his life for a mere muscle-headed fool.” 

As he speaks, Schmidt steps forward and prods at Steve’s fingers with the toe of his boot; not with any real force, not yet, but Steve knows he’ll be in trouble once Schmidt gets tired of gloating. If he’s going to get out of this, he needs to think of something soon, so he tunes out Schmidt’s voice and starts assessing his options. He’s weighing the risks of making a grab for Schmidt’s ankle when another voice breaks into Schmidt’s monologue.

_“Get the fuck away from him.”_

Steve twists his head around. On the other side of the chasm, Bucky is scowling fiercely at Schmidt, bold as anything despite the fact that he’s still too weak to stand upright without leaning on the railing of the catwalk for support.

“What are you doing, Bucky? Just go, get out of here!” Steve yells. Whatever happens to himself, Bucky has to get away, that’s the whole reason he’s been doing this. 

“Not without you,” Bucky insists stubbornly, then returns his attention to Schmidt. “I’m warning you, asshole, just walk away.” 

It’s an empty threat and Schmidt knows it. With a condescending smirk, he steps back so that his boot is no longer hovering over Steve’s fingers, but doesn’t retreat any further.

“I commend your loyalty, but the Captain here is too much of a nuisance to be allowed to go free. I suggest that you follow his advice and leave while you can, unless you wish to stay and watch him die.”

“Over my dead body,” Bucky growls.

“That is also an option. Dr Zola?” 

Schmidt turns to the man in the glasses, who has been standing off to the side, watching the whole exchange with a terrified expression on his face, and gestures at the lever for the bridge. 

Finally. The moment Schmidt looks away, Steve scrambles up onto the small area of free space at the end of the walkway, moving as swiftly as possible. He’s all too aware of Schmidt’s proximity and the empty space at his back, but this is probably the only chance he’s going to get and he has to take it. He’s barely on his feet before Schmidt turns back around, gives an aggravated sigh, and swings a fist at him. Steve is ready for it: he ducks under the punch and charges forward, aiming to either push past Schmidt or bowl him over. Schmidt’s no lightweight, though, and with so little room, Steve can’t get any momentum, and has to rely on sheer strength instead. It’s not enough. Schmidt wrenches Steve off with a violent shove, flinging him backwards, out into the middle of the fiery gulf. For an instant, Steve hangs frozen in the burning air, and then his stomach gives a twist and he’s falling, down, down. Up on the catwalk, Bucky is shouting something, arm outstretched uselessly, but then he disappears and everything is swallowed up in flames.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve wakes up, and almost wishes he hadn’t. He feels like he wants to scream, or cry, or hit something, but there are people right outside the tent, so all he can do is bury his face in his pillow to stifle his frustrated groans.

He really thought he’d done it, that time. He’d found Bucky, they’d nearly escaped, but then he’d let Schmidt provoke him into a fight and he’d thrown it all away. How could he have been so stupid, letting his anger get the better of him like that? Maybe Schmidt was right about him; he’s had so many chances and still he keeps failing, letting down Bucky, Peggy, Erskine, all the people who ever believed in him. And now he’s reset and Bucky must be trapped on that awful examination table again, and there’s nothing Steve can do but wait, and try to do better this time. How many more times will it take, he wonders? Not that the answer really matters. Now that he knows Bucky is alive, he’s going to keep trying again and again until he gets him out of there, that’s all there is to it. Anything less is simply unthinkable.

Having confirmed his resolve, Steve feels calmer, more focused, and is able to drag himself out of his cot and go through the dull but necessary motions of eating breakfast, signing autographs, passing time until he has the chance to actually do something meaningful. It’s hard, acting like everything is normal and not dwelling too much on what might be happening to Bucky at that moment, but he keeps his patience and allows events to unfold the same way as they did the first time, without saying a word to Stark, Peggy or anyone else to let on that he’s experienced it all before. He does the show; he talks to Peggy; Stark gives them a lift in his plane; and then he’s at the HYDRA base and sneaking into the factory.

By this point, he knows the guards’ movements well enough that he doesn’t bother looking out for them, just goes straight across the factory floor to the prisoners’ wing. Letting them out first will probably make it more dangerous for him and Bucky later, but it’d be harder trying to come back for them with Bucky in tow, and he can’t leave them behind. Once they’re freed, Steve retraces his steps from the previous day, and he’s never been more thankful for the serum than when he reenters that room and finds Bucky for the second time.

“I thought you were dead,” Steve says. 

_‘I thought I’d lost you,’_ he means. 

They cling to each other as they make their way back down the corridor. With fire raging on the lower levels, the catwalks are still the safest place to be, so that’s where Steve leads them, even though it means encountering Schmidt again. 

Steve keeps his head this time and stays on the defensive, suppressing his desire to punch Schmidt in the face every time the man opens his mouth. His restraint pays off; when Zola pulls the lever to retract the bridge, Steve is standing on the opposite side from Schmidt, and is soon out of his reach. With almost the entire width of the factory between them, Schmidt is powerless to harm either Steve or Bucky, and has to content himself with the looks on their faces when he peels off his own and reveals the demonic red skull underneath. It’s a horrific sight, and it comes as a great relief when Schmidt finishes up his little speech and retreats into an elevator with Zola, leaving Steve and Bucky free to search for an escape route.

It’s hard to see clearly through the flickering shadows and ever-increasing smoke, but after casting around for a moment, Steve spots the flashing sign of an emergency exit, a few levels up and on the opposite side of the factory. There’s no proper path across, but there’s a thick girder extending between two of the catwalks that looks like it’s sturdy enough to take a man’s weight, and it seems to be their only choice.

Bucky goes first, edging forwards onto the girder while Steve watches with his heart in his mouth. The beam shudders ominously with each fresh explosion from below, but Bucky keeps his footing, and he’s almost all of the way across when the girder comes loose with a grinding clang. He manages to jump the last few feet before it falls away completely, catching at the railing and scrambling over onto the catwalk, but now Steve is stranded on the other side. 

They stare at each other in dismay. Steve half-heartedly urges Bucky to go on without him, but he refuses, and Steve’s left with no option but to jump. It’s a long way, serum or no, but he can’t give up, not when Bucky’s right there, eyes fixed firmly on Steve as if to carry him across the gulf through the force of his own willpower. So, after backing up as far as he can, Steve takes a deep breath, runs the short distance to the edge of the catwalk, and leaps.

The sensation of flying through the air above the flames is terrifyingly familiar, but this time when he starts to drop, there’s a pair of strong hands waiting to haul him over the railing to safety.

Steve is stunned. He clutches at Bucky’s arms, hardly daring to believe that he actually made it, until a sudden explosion shakes the catwalk and reminds him of the danger they’re still in. Together, they push through the exit door into a concrete stairwell and race down to the bottom, emerging at last into the frosty night.

It’s almost peaceful outside, after the inferno of the factory. The alarms have stopped and there’s no one else in sight. Steve looks around to get his bearings, then turns and promptly gets the breath knocked out of him when Bucky seizes him in a fierce hug. Steve lets out a startled laugh and hugs back, allowing himself to relax for the first time in days. It feels strange having to tuck his head down, and Bucky is too small, too fragile, but it’s still _him,_ warm and solid and alive, and that’s all that matters.

Steve could stay like this for hours, but it’s only a few moments before Bucky loosens his hold and says, in a slightly muffled voice, “Hey, Steve, you mind easing up a bit? I think you’re gonna break my ribs.”

Steve jumps back guiltily, dropping his arms. 

“Shit, sorry, Buck. Still getting used to... well, this,” he says, and gestures at his oversized body.

“No kidding. I still can’t believe it’s really you and not some kinda hallucination,” Bucky says, looking Steve up and down. Then he clasps Steve’s shoulder and adds, “I’m real glad to see you though, pal.”

Steve ducks his head shyly under the warmth of Bucky’s gaze, but can’t hide the dopey grin that spreads across his face. 

“Yeah, well, same to you.”

 

 

They turn their backs on the still-burning wreckage of the factory and head for the perimeter gate, where they find the rest of the escaped prisoners gathered in a clearing just outside the fence. It looks like the British lieutenant, Falsworth, has taken command of the men since they got out, but when Steve shows up, they all start deferring to him instead. Steve is a bit taken aback at being designated their leader, but accepts the role without argument, and soon has the men organized and ready for the long walk back to base camp.

“You sure you’re okay?” Steve asks Bucky as they set off, marching side by side at the head of the column. There’s no trace of shakiness left in Bucky’s steps, but he’s been uncharacteristically quiet ever since they rejoined the other men. “There’s still room on the trucks if you wanna ride.”

“I told you, I’m fine,” Bucky insists. “God, you’re not gonna start babying me now, are you? Is this what I was like with you?” 

Ignoring the bitter edge in Bucky’s voice, Steve knocks him with his shoulder and says, “Damn right, and now it’s payback time.”

Bucky rolls his eyes and shoves Steve back in retaliation.

“Hey!” Steve squawks, “What kind of a way is that to treat Captain America? I’m a national hero, you know.”

“You’re a little punk is what you are.”

“Little?” 

“ _Big_ punk, then.”

“Yeah, well you’re a jerk.” 

The familiar exchange draws a small smile out of Bucky, and the tension between them eases. Steve’s still concerned about him but he doesn’t push, and to his surprise, Bucky really does seem to be okay. Whatever HYDRA did to him, it hasn’t taken a lasting toll on his strength, and they march steadily for several hours towards the Italian border. It’s only when Sergeant Jones jogs up to inform Steve that the men are getting tired that he realizes how much of the night has already passed. 

Reluctantly, Steve calls a halt and they stop for rest. He takes his time checking on the injured men, organizing a couple of shifts for guard duty, and making sure that their scanty supplies are being distributed appropriately, but eventually everything settles down and he’s forced to acknowledge the anxiety buzzing around in the back of his mind. 

For the last few days, every time Steve’s woken up, he’s found himself miraculously returned to base camp, back to the morning when all of this started. He’s managed to make it through the entire day this time, but now he can’t help dreading that when he goes to sleep, he’ll reset again, and everything he’s done today will have been for nothing. Stark said that the resets would only happen if and when Steve dies, but what does he really know about it? What if the serum doesn’t work the way that Erskine intended, and Steve is stuck repeating the same day over and over in an endless loop, no matter what he does?

He’s got to sleep sometime, though, and he’s run out of excuses to keep putting it off, so he swallows his fear as best he can and stretches out next to Bucky. The night is cold, and they huddle up closely, chest-to-back with Steve’s arm draped over Bucky’s shoulder to let him get the most out of Steve’s body heat.

“Just like old times,” Steve murmurs against the back of Bucky’s neck, remembering winter nights in Brooklyn when the cold forced them to curl up together under shared blankets. It feels like a lifetime ago; given that Steve has in fact died a couple of times since then, he supposes that technically it is.

Bucky snorts. “At least this time I don’t have to put up with your cold feet.”

“Hey, I had circulatory problems.”

Bucky hesitates for a moment, before quietly replying, “Guess the serum changed that, too. No cold feet for Captain America.”

There’s a strange wistfulness in his tone that makes Steve frown. He searches for Bucky’s hand in the darkness and gives it a gentle squeeze. 

“I’m still me, Bucky.”

“Yeah?”

“C’mon, who else would come all this way just to save a jerk like you?”

“Hmph. You got a point there,” Bucky concedes. “Breaking into a fucking Nazi base all on your own- Christ, Steve, that’s you all over.” He sighs and rearranges his hand over Steve’s larger one. “You really haven’t changed, huh?”

“Not where it counts.”

They fall silent. Steve lies there, listening to the regular rise and fall of Bucky’s breathing and the faint thud of his heartbeat. Bucky’s still awake, too; Steve can feel the tension in his body, pressed together as they are. After a while, Bucky shifts, turning his head slightly.

“Hey, Steve?” he whispers, so softly that Steve only hears it because their faces are bare inches apart.

“Yeah, Buck?”

“You’re still gonna be here when I wake up, right?”

Steve stares at the barely visible silhouette of Bucky’s face, trying to make sense of the question, but before he can respond, Bucky continues, in a broken rush of words, “Because I saw you, before. On the table. But then I’d wake up and you were gone, and…” He shakes his head. “Just, tell me you’re not gonna disappear again.”

He grips Steve’s hand like a lifeline, as if he’s afraid of what might happen if he lets go, and Steve has to close his eyes against a sudden pang of sorrow.

“I promise,” Steve says firmly. “I’m not going anywhere, Bucky. Not without you.”

“Okay. Good.”

They settle back into a peaceful silence, and before long they’re both fast asleep, nestled together on the frozen ground.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve wakes up. He’s cold and stiff, but there’s a warm bulk in front of him, and he nudges his head forward to breathe in its familiar scent. It starts moving, turning around, and Steve opens his eyes to find Bucky blinking blearily at him in the pale morning light. Bucky smiles, and his face is like a sunrise. 

“So, you’re still here, huh?”

Steve beams back. 

“Yeah, I guess so.”


	2. Chapter 2

Steve leads the former prisoners safely across the Italian border and back to the Allied base camp. Instead of a court martial, he receives a medal for valor and is given his own team of men to continue taking out HYDRA bases across Europe. It’s everything he’d dreamed of when he volunteered for Project Rebirth, the chance to fight for his country, to prove his worth, and though his sense of gratification is tempered by the constant presence of death and all the other horrors of the battlefield, they only strengthen his conviction that this is the right thing to do. Someone has to stop HYDRA and the Nazis, and he’s more than happy for that person to be him.

Not that he’s alone, of course. The Howling Commandos are a great team, with diverse skills and a deep camaraderie born of their shared imprisonment and subsequent escape, and they quickly become something like a family to Steve. As much as he values their friendship, though, none of them are as close or as dear to him as Bucky.

Bucky remains quieter than before, more serious and prone to occasional bouts of brooding, but he’s still as brave and kind and fiercely loyal as the boy Steve grew up with. He’s also an excellent soldier, as it turns out, and one of the army’s best snipers, with sharp sight and uncanny sense of stealth. It’s a little disconcerting, the first time Steve sees Bucky coolly picking off enemy soldiers, but he soon grows used to it. Bucky has always looked out for Steve; a lot of things have changed since Project Rebirth, but it’s a comfort to know that this at least remains the same.

Steve also sees a lot of Peggy these days, now that he’s taking real missions with SSR, and his admiration for her continues to grow. She’s smart, tough, beautiful, and Steve will never forget how she believed in him when he didn’t even believe in himself. The men tease him about her, call her Steve’s sweetheart, and it’s not like that, not yet, but Steve starts to think that maybe it _could_ be. When Peggy smiles at him, eyes sparkling and her mouth a proud streak of red, it’s like fireworks, and for the first time in his life, Steve dares to imagine a future with someone who loves him the same way that he loves them.

Things don’t always go smoothly for Steve in his new life. He’s a quick learner, but still inexperienced, and he resets several times in the first few months. It happens less frequently as his skills and judgment improve, but Steve’s never been overly concerned with his own well-being, and the knowledge that he literally can’t die only encourages his tendency to throw himself into danger whenever it might help to protect someone else. He can afford to be killed; the others can’t.

 

 

One time, they’re passing through a snowy forest on their way to a German mining village where HYDRA is reportedly building a powerful new weapon. Steve is in the lead, keeping an eye out for enemy patrols, but there’s nothing to see except trees and a few leafless bushes, and he continues along the path. Bucky’s eyes are sharper than Steve’s, though, or maybe his hearing is; in any case, he notices something, because the next thing Steve knows, there’s the crack of a gunshot and Bucky is throwing him to the ground.

It doesn’t take long for the other men to locate the sniper and shoot him down from his treetop perch, but Steve barely notices any of that. All of his attention is focused on Bucky, lying half-dead in his arms from a bullet that was aimed at him.

“Goddamnit, Bucky, what’d you do that for? What were you thinking?” Steve asks helplessly, as Morita inspects the wound. It doesn’t look good. The bullet hit Bucky square in the back of the chest, and there’s blood everywhere.

Bucky coughs, sprinkling flecks of red across the snow. “S’my job, ain’t it?”

 _“No,_ you idiot, your job’s to stay alive.”

“That an order, Captain?” Bucky tries to smirk, but it turns into a wince when Morita rips open a pad of dressing and presses it against his back.

“Yeah,” Steve answers, “yeah, it is, so you’d better listen up and do as I say, alright? Just stay with me, Buck, you’re gonna be fine.”

“Yessir,” he says, but his eyes are already fluttering closed.

“Stay with me,” Steve whispers again as he hugs Bucky to his chest, pressing his hand firmly over the bloodied bandages. He keeps talking, a rambling stream of jokes and reminiscences, and every now and then Bucky grunts something in response, but after a while the replies stop coming, and then Steve is left sobbing into Bucky’s shoulder while the other men wait quietly a short distance away with their eyes turned to the ground.

Steve isn’t sure how much time passes before Falsworth touches his shoulder and suggests that they ought to get moving again. He’s right, of course- they have a mission to complete, and a single death doesn’t change that fact. Still, it takes another minute before Steve can bring himself to let go, smoothing out Bucky’s jacket and pushing his hair back into place as he gently lays the body down on the snow. He scrubs a hand over his face and rises slowly to his feet. The Howlies stand solemnly around him, and he supposes that he should say something, make some sort of speech, but his mind is completely blank and he can’t find any words. Thankfully, Dum Dum saves him the trouble by stepping forward and pulling him into a rough hug.

“C’mon Cap, let’s make those bastards pay.”

 

 

The remainder of the journey passes in silence. Everyone is on edge and hyper-vigilant, but apart from one HYDRA patrol which they take by surprise and dispatch with a minimum of fuss, they don’t run into any more trouble until they reach the village. The plan had been for Bucky to go in first and take out the perimeter guards so that the rest of them would be able to slip in undetected, but now someone else will have to take his place. Steve would go himself, but the others unanimously reject that idea, and after some hurried discussion they settle on Falsworth instead.

Night is falling as he edges out from the trees at the outskirts of the village, while Steve and the other Howlies watch and wait. A HYDRA soldier is on guard nearby, shoulders hunched against the wind as he paces slowly back and forth along the length of a wooden fence. Falsworth pads cautiously over the snow-covered ground, keeping to the deepest shadows and out of the guard’s line of sight. He’s only a few yards away when suddenly he stumbles and sinks waist-deep into the snow with a soft _whoomph._

The guard startles and turns around. Eyes widening in surprise, he lets out a cry of alarm and raises his gun, but Falsworth has already grabbed his own pistol and fires first, straight up through the guard’s chest. The man falls lifeless to the ground, but everyone in the village must have heard the gunshot; no chance of sneaking in quietly anymore, they’ll have to make a run for it.

Steve and the others break out from the trees and race towards Falsworth, already hauling himself up on the far side of the snow-filled trench, and together they vault over the fence. There’s a squad of HYDRA soldiers heading their way, probably come to investigate the gunshot- they spot the Howlies immediately, and the two groups charge at each other, shouts and bursts of gunfire rising up as they all plunge into the fight. Steve hurls his shield, knocking down one of the HYDRA soldiers, catches it in time to deflect a shot from someone else, then rams the edge into another man’s ribs. Soon, the HYDRA soldiers are all dead or unconscious, but the wailing of an alarm siren warns that more are on the way.

“This way, keep moving,” Steve orders, and they set off running again.

With the advantages of speed and surprise, the Howlies manage to fight their way to the center of the village while their opponents are still getting organized. HYDRA’s defensive efforts seem to be focused on a large stone building near the town square, which Steve figures must be the location of the weapon they’ve been sent to destroy. A grenade takes out several of the guards gathered around the building, leaving the rest stunned and vulnerable to the Howlies’ ensuing attack, and they manage to clear a space in front of the entrance, but their initial attempts to batter down the iron-clad doors prove unsuccessful.

More and more HYDRA soldiers are appearing every minute now, and it takes all of the Howlies’ efforts to hold them off while Steve backs up far enough to fling his shield at the doors. It hits them with a dull clang and bounces off, leaving a shallow dent in the metal surface, but they remain sturdy and secure. Steve catches the shield and winds his arm back to throw it again, when all of a sudden the doors burst open from the inside, giving way under the force of a blinding beam of blue-white light that narrowly misses Steve but incinerates two HYDRA soldiers in the throng behind him and goes on to smash through a building on the far side of the square.

“What in the hell was that?!” Dum Dum yells, not turning around as he ducks to avoid a punch.

“I think we found that weapon Phillips was talking about,” Steve says slowly.

Visible through the now-gaping doorway is the source of the beam, a massive cannon that swivels as they speak, aiming directly at Steve. A faint hum and a pulsing blue glow in the depths of the barrel are all the warning Steve gets before a second energy beam erupts from the cannon. He manages to block it with his shield, but the force is still strong enough to bowl him over, and he has barely enough time to scramble into a crouch before another beam shoots out at him. He’s ready for it this time, and manages to hold his position while the beam rebounds back at the building, taking out a large chunk of the roof. The machine charges up and shoots again, and again, but Steve is braced firmly against the ground with his whole body hidden safely behind the shield, and the deflected beams are just destroying the building in which the cannon is housed. Whoever’s controlling the weapon seems to realize this; Steve is peering over the top of his shield, trying to judge the angle he needs in order to reflect the beam straight back at the cannon, when the barrel turns away from him to aim instead at Dernier and Gabe, the latter injured and bleeding heavily but still managing to hold a group of HYDRA soldiers at bay while the former reloads his gun. 

The cannon hums and then fires, and Steve lunges to the side to block the shot. The beam hits the edge of the shield and rebounds harmlessly to the ground with a sizzle of melted snow, but the impact knocks the shield out of Steve’s grip. It skitters away, and he’s about to go after it when the cannon swings back the other way.

“Jim!” Steve yells, but Morita is distracted, struggling to fight off a trio of attackers and seemingly unaware of the danger behind him. The cannon hums, and Steve makes his decision. Time seems to slow as he leaps into the air, light surging towards Morita while Steve hurtles forwards to intercept it, arms outstretched as if to catch the beam in his hands. He doesn’t, of course; the energy beam burns right through him, and Steve feels a brief sensation of consuming agony before everything fades into darkness.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve wakes up. He jerks upright, clutching tightly at his blanket, until the panic diminishes enough for him to recognize the interior of his tent and realize what’s happened. He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a series of slow, deep breaths, telling himself that the frenzy of memories in his head aren’t real, they haven’t happened yet. The day is only just begun, there’s no energy cannon, no HYDRA soldiers, nobody’s been hurt, Bucky hasn’t- 

Bucky…

Tumbling out of his cot, Steve hurries outside and looks around eagerly, heart hammering in his throat. There are plenty of people bustling about the camp already, but Steve barely notices - his eyes are drawn unerringly to the spot where Bucky sits lounging on a fallen log, eating breakfast. He’s alive. It’s exactly what Steve expected, but the confirmation still leaves him dazed and giddy with relief. 

“Bucky!” 

Steve practically runs over to him, then falters to a stop and stands there for a moment, gazing at Bucky. He wants to wrap his arms around him and never let go, but instead he settles for reaching out and clasping his shoulder. 

“Hey,” Steve says, grinning helplessly.

“Morning.” Bucky gives him a wary smile in return, eyes flickering between Steve’s face and the hand on his shoulder. “Someone’s in a good mood today- what happened, did Hitler surrender? Or, lemme guess, you finally made a move on Agent Carter.”

“What? I- Nothing happened, I’m just glad to see you is all.”

Bucky snorts. “Don’t lie to me, Steve, I know you must be sick of my ugly mug by now.”

“I’m not lying,” Steve insists, adding, “And anyway, you’re not that ugly.”

That startles a bark of laughter out of Bucky. “Fuck you, Rogers, you’re just jealous ‘cause the serum wasn’t able to fix that nose of yours.”

“Hey, I’m your commanding officer,” Steve protests. “Show a little respect.”

“My apologies. Fuck you, _Captain.”_

“That’s more like it.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he takes a gulp of coffee. Steve swats at him to move over, and they sit together in the pale morning light, sharing the chocolate bar from Bucky’s breakfast ration and watching the camp come to life around them.

“So, not that this isn’t nice and all,” Bucky says after a moment, “but I could have sworn Phillips said something about sending us out on a mission today. Don’t you have more important things to do than sitting around here with me?”

Steve hums thoughtfully.

“Nope.”

 

 

Throughout the morning’s preparations, Steve sticks closer than usual to Bucky, finding excuses to jostle his elbow, pat his back, a hundred casual touches that ground him in the present and remind him of what he has, what he stands to lose. Bucky seems bemused by the attention, but aside from a few questioning looks that Steve pretends not to understand, he accepts it easily enough, and if anybody else notices that Steve is being unusually demonstrative, they don’t comment on it.

Eventually they head out, and Steve’s cheerful demeanor hardens into something more solemn as they approach the forest and the site of the sniper’s nest. With the memory of Bucky’s death painfully clear in his mind, Steve insists on going ahead of the others to check that the path is clear, anxiously scanning the trees until he finds the one he’s looking for. A well-aimed throw with his shield brings the sniper down before he has a chance to shoot anyone, and Steve feels a savage satisfaction when the man chooses cyanide over capture and starts twitching and frothing at the mouth.

The incident takes no more than a minute and is quickly dismissed by most of the men as they continue on their way. Once again, they arrive at the village and settle in beneath the shadow of the trees as night begins to fall.

“Watch your step,” Steve warns Bucky, who is getting ready to leave their hiding place and cross the short stretch of open ground that separates them from the HYDRA guard by the fence. “It looks like the snow’s been disturbed over there- might be some kind of trap hidden underneath.” The snow is actually perfectly smooth, even to Steve’s eyes, but Bucky just nods his acknowledgement and drops to all fours, creeping lightly over the surface of the snow until he reaches the fence. Rising to his feet again, he steals up behind the guard and cuts his throat in a single swift movement, too fast for the man to make any sound that could give them away, then tosses the body aside and signals to Steve. 

Everything goes perfectly according to plan, with Bucky slipping through the shadows with his knife at the ready to silence the cries of any guards he comes across, while Steve and the others follow in his wake. The intruders go unnoticed by HYDRA, right up until they blow a hole in the rear wall of the building where the energy cannon is located, and by then it’s already too late. Steve and the Howlies get away with only a few minor injuries, and altogether the mission is a complete success.

 

 

So it goes. Allied forces continue to push the Nazis back towards Germany while the Howling Commandos take out every HYDRA base they can find, until it’s 1945 and they’re down to the last known location, a research facility near Cologne. It’s a critical mission- they’ve been fighting Schmidt’s troops all over Europe, but the man himself has remained elusive, and wherever he is, he’s been working on something big, pouring huge amounts of money and resources into some sort of advanced superweapon of unprecedented destructive power. Ever since they first got wind of it, SSR has been scrambling to find out what this weapon does, where it’s being built, when it will be completed, but they haven’t managed to discover anything useful, and this research facility represents their best chance of turning up some fresh information that could help them to stop Schmidt before it’s too late.

The attack starts with a frontal assault by the 107th. HYDRA sentries spot them coming from over a mile away, and troops march out swiftly to engage the attackers while they’re still making their way towards the compound, leaving only a skeleton crew behind to guard the facility. 

Steve and his team watch these proceedings from a high wooded ridge overlooking the other side of the compound. Once the soldiers have been drawn away, Bucky fires a zip-line at the nearest corner of the main building, and as soon as it’s been secured, Steve hooks a pair of handles over the line and off he goes. He zooms along over the trees, curling his legs up to clear the top of the electric fence that surrounds the compound, before slamming into the concrete wall of the building. Swallowing down a pained groan, he dismounts onto a window ledge and smashes the glass as quietly as he can, then slips through into an empty office. He locks the door, then returns to the window and signals to the others. One by one, they all come sailing down the zip-line, to be caught by Steve and handed down through the open window until everyone is assembled in the office. 

For this mission, Steve and the Howlies are accompanied by Peggy and another SSR intel officer, Agent Clarke. Under their direction, the Howlies start moving down the corridor, systematically securing each room and combing them for potentially useful files and other information. With the bulk of HYDRA’s soldiers out defending the base against the 107th, the only personnel the Howlies encounter are scientists and engineers, men untrained in combat, most of whom are easily apprehended before they can alert anyone to the quiet infiltration of the building. However, one of them eventually manages to evade the Howlies long enough to set off an alarm, and then it’s all sirens and flashing lights as the facility goes into lockdown.

“Well, that’s done it,” Peggy sighs, moving towards the door as she shoves one last file into her backpack and slings it over her shoulders.

“You got what you need?” Steve asks, as they run down the corridor, back to the first office where they came in.

“I hope so- we’ll find out soon enough.”

They enter the office, where Agent Clarke is already halfway out the window. Peggy turns to Steve.

“I’m off, then,” she says. “Try not to get into too much trouble, will you? I’ll see you at the rendezvous.”

“I’ll be there,” Steve promises.

She gives him a bright smile, and then she’s out the window and rappelling down the side of the building. Steve watches long enough to see her reach the ground, then heads back to rejoin the Howlies. 

Now it’s their turn to create a distraction while Peggy and Clarke make off with the files. The Howlies’ wing of the building is blocked at one end by a pair of steel doors that slammed shut the moment the alarms were activated. Examination of the control panel beside the doors indicates that they can only be unlocked with a special key and the correct passcode- or alternatively, a heavy blow with a chunk of vibranium. Steve bursts through the doors, shield upraised, Howlies at his heels, and charges straight into the group of HYDRA guards who have gathered on the other side. The Howlies barrel past and keep running, while the guards, startled by this abrupt attack and sudden retreat, gape at them in indignant confusion, which is why most of them are still standing directly in front of the corridor when Dernier’s bomb goes off.

The sound of the blast, combined with the ensuing yelling, gunfire, and partial collapse of that section of the building, quickly attracts all of the remaining HYDRA soldiers who are still on the base. There are too few of them to pose much of a threat, though, and they barely slow the Howlies down. More troublesome are the scientists; the ones who try to fight are easily taken care of, but others try to flee with samples or documents from their research and have to be chased down, and a few of them even break down in cries and pleas for mercy. 

“Cap, this one says he wants to surrender,” Gabe calls out, using his gun to prod a paunchy, middle-aged man towards Steve. “What do you want me to do with him?”

“Shoot him,” Bucky responds immediately, before going back to taking potshots at lab equipment with an energy gun he picked up from a dead guard.

“No! Don’t shoot him,” Steve orders. The man is clearly terrified, with both hands raised high in the air, tears streaking his face as he babbles hysterically in a combination of German and broken English. “It’s okay, we’re not going to hurt you,” Steve says reassuringly.

“Like hell we’re not,” Bucky interjects, dropping the energy gun and scowling at Steve. “He’s HYDRA, just shoot the bastard and move on.”

“Bucky, he’s an unarmed civilian, and he’s giving himself up.”

“Civilian my ass, these guys don’t need guns to kill people. _He works for HYDRA.”_

“So did Dr Erskine,” Steve argues. “Besides, he might have useful information. Just stick him in one of those cells in the outbuilding and we can take him back with us later,” he tells Gabe.

“I don’t like this,” Bucky mutters, glaring darkly at the man as Gabe leads him away. “He’s gotta be up to something.”

Steve shrugs. “Maybe he is, that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.”

“Great, that’s very reassuring, thanks Steve.”

“Sorry. Hey, I think I know what would make you feel better, though,” he says, nudging Bucky in the side.

“Oh yeah?”

“Blowing this place up.”

Bucky’s expression lifts. 

“Now _that’s_ a good idea.”

 

 

Once they’ve rounded up the rest of the Howlies, Dernier sets up a couple of charges at key points throughout the facility and quickly reduces it to a smoking concrete husk. They’re checking their weapons and preparing to leave, to go and join the battle between the 107th and the HYDRA troops that’s still going on in the distance, when Steve hears a faint cry.

“Did you guys hear that?”

“Hear what?” Dum Dum asks. “I don’t-”

“Shh!” Steve shushes him, listening hard, and there it is again- “There’s someone still alive in there.”

“Well, we can take care of that,” Dum Dum says, with an easy grin. “Hey Dernier, got any more explosives left?”

Steve ignores him. “They’re shouting for help,” he says, staring at the half-collapsed building.

Bucky takes one look at the expression on Steve’s face and groans. 

“Steve, _no.”_

“Yes.”

“It’s a fucking deathtrap, you gonna go in there and risk your life for some HYDRA scumbag?”

“I’ll be fine,” Steve says firmly. “You guys go on ahead, I’ll join you later.”

He starts jogging back towards the building. Behind him, he’s vaguely aware of Bucky sighing heavily, followed by a brief exchange of words and then the quick thud of approaching footsteps. 

“Hey, Buck,” he calls over his shoulder as Bucky catches up to him. The others are already setting off in the opposite direction, towards the battle. “You decide you wanna save some HYDRA scumbags after all?”

“Hell no, I’m just here to stop you from doing anything stupid,” Bucky grumbles. “Not that I’ve ever managed it before.”

They reach the crumbling façade of the building and slip through the opening where the main entrance used to be, emerging onto a scorched mess of rubble on the other side. Twisted bits of metal and wooden beams poke out from under lumps of concrete, and the remnants of wall that are still upright shudder ominously in the wind. 

“Hello? Is there someone in here?” Steve calls out. “Do you need help?”

There’s a whimper from somewhere over to the left, and Steve clambers through the debris towards the sound, with Bucky trailing after him. Curled up in the angle between a charred piece of wall and a fallen door, they find a young man in a dirty lab coat, who stares up at them in a mixture of confusion and terror.

“Captain America?” he whispers incredulously.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Steve says. “Do you understand English? Are you hurt?”

“… My foot.”

“Okay, we can get someone to have a look at that later. Can you stand up?”

Bucky keeps his gun trained on the man as he shuffles out from the shelter of the door and gets to his feet with a pained wince. After a quick pat-down, Bucky allows Steve to wrap the man’s arm over his shoulders and they start heading back towards the entrance, the man limping along with Steve’s support while Bucky follows a step behind. They’re climbing over a piece of wreckage when the man stumbles and falls down. Steve pauses to help him up, and quick as a snake, the man seizes a shard of metal from the ground and plunges it into Steve’s thigh. Steve collapses to his knees with a surprised grunt, and the man smiles in triumph as Bucky puts a bullet in his head. The sound of the gunshot fades away, but in its wake comes a low creaking noise. Steve and Bucky both look up, eyes widening as they spot the rapidly-growing crack in the wall above them.

“Shit, Steve, run,” Bucky exclaims, grabbing Steve’s arm and trying to pull him out of the way, but his wounded leg is weak and pouring with blood- femoral artery, Steve thinks distantly, almost as bad as the jugular- and the ground is cluttered with obstacles, and they don’t get far before the wall topples over.

“Bucky?” Steve calls out weakly, once the wall has finished collapsing. “You okay?” He squints through the dust-filled air and tries to raise a hand to his eyes, only to find that the main part of the wall has fallen right on top of him, and almost all of his body is now trapped beneath a huge slab of reinforced concrete. The weight of it pressing on his chest makes it hard to breathe, and in this position, he can’t get enough leverage to try to shift it and free himself, even if he weren’t already woozy from blood loss.

“Steve! There you are.” Bucky appears by Steve’s shoulder, disheveled and dusty but apparently unhurt apart from a few mild scrapes. His expression of relief quickly changes to a frown as he takes in Steve’s pale face and the fallen wall, but he remains calm. “You just lie still, okay Steve, and I’ll get this thing off of you.”

Crouching, Bucky grasps the edge of the concrete slab and tries to lift it up. It doesn’t budge. He shifts his grip and tries again, muscles straining. The pressure on Steve’s chest starts to ease a little, just enough to make breathing less of a challenge, but then Bucky falls backwards with a groan, and the full, crushing weight drops back onto Steve’s body.

“Goddamn fucking scientists,” Bucky mutters as he picks himself up. He turns away, cupping his hands around his mouth, and shouts at the top of his lungs, “Hey! Dum Dum! Jim!” And then, “Carter! Clarke!” There’s no reply. Bucky curses some more, then grits his teeth and resumes struggling with the concrete slab.

Steve’s breaths are coming fast and shallow now. He can barely feel most of his body anymore, just pressure on his chest and the sharp throb of his leg, and it’s getting hard to think straight.

“S’no good, Buck,” he says, flopping his head from side to side. “Lost too much blood…”

“Shut up, Steve, I’m busy here,” Bucky grunts.

“It’s alright though, ‘cause I’ll just… I’ll die, and then…” Steve wants to explain about the resets, but he’s so tired, he just needs to rest for a moment.

“Don’t be stupid, you’re not gonna- hey, hey, stop that,” Bucky’s voice calls urgently. “Wake up, Stevie, stay with me.”

Reluctantly, Steve opens his eyes. Bucky is knelt over him, cradling Steve’s face in his hands and gently slapping his cheek.

“Yeah, ’m with you,” Steve mumbles. “’Til the end…”

“’Til the end of the line, that’s right,” Bucky finishes, in a choked whisper.

Steve smiles. His vision’s going fuzzy, but he can still make out Bucky’s face hovering over his own, so close, eyes wide and shining beneath a furrowed brow. He looks sad, Steve thinks, and raises his head to press a kiss against the tight line of Bucky’s mouth.

“Love you, Bucky,” Steve murmurs, and drops his head back to the ground as everything fades into darkness.

 

 

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

Steve wakes up. There’s a moment of panic and disorientation before he recognizes the familiar olive drab of an army tent overhead and realizes that he must have reset. Good. He relaxes, letting his eyes fall closed. It’ll be time to get up soon, start preparing for the mission to the research facility, but first he wants to rest a little longer- he’s so tired, heavy with a bone-deep exhaustion like he hasn’t felt since before the serum. He nestles into his blanket, already drifting towards sleep, only to be pulled back by a sudden tug of pain in his leg. He tries shifting to a more comfortable position, but hisses when the movement sends another stab of pain shooting through his thigh.

Fully awake now, Steve raises his head and focuses properly on his surroundings. This isn’t his tent, is the first thing that strikes him; it’s much bigger than his own sleeping tent, although partitions have been set up around his cot to create a small private room. Beyond these makeshift walls, he can hear the murmur of voices, men and women both, and the air has an acrid metallic sharpness that makes his nose wrinkle. With growing suspicion, he hauls himself up to a sitting position and pushes his blanket aside, to reveal a swathe of bandages wrapped neatly around his left thigh.

He’s still staring at his leg when someone pokes their head into the room a minute later. It’s Peggy.

“Steve, you’re awake!” she exclaims, face lighting up as she rushes forward to his cot. “Are you alright? How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” he says, blinking slowly at her as he tries to collect his thoughts. Peggy looks him up and down with a pointed expression, and he huffs sheepishly. “Well, not fine,” he concedes, “but not bad, considering the last thing I remember was getting stabbed and then a building collapsing on top of me.” He pauses for a moment, before continuing, “I can’t tell you how surprised I was to wake up here. I thought for sure I was gonna die.”

“You almost did,” Peggy says gravely. “From what I understand, you suffered a very dangerous amount of blood loss. Fortunately, Sergeant Barnes managed to free you, and found a medic in time to give you an emergency transfusion.”

Something about that seems wrong, somehow, but more importantly- “Bucky, where is he?”

“Still in debrief. Don’t worry, I’ll let him know you’re here as soon as he gets out, but that won’t be for a while yet. In the meantime, you should probably try to rest a bit more, you’re looking quite pale,” Peggy observes.

“Yeah, I- I am pretty tired.”

“I suppose I should leave you alone then, and come back when you’re feeling better,” she says, but doesn’t go anywhere, just stands there gazing at him. “We’re all very glad you made it, Steve. _I’m_ very glad.”

She brushes a soft kiss against his cheek, then straightens up and disappears behind the partition. A few moments later, a nurse comes in to check Steve’s pulse and ask a few questions, before leaving him with instructions to go back to sleep and to call out if he needs anything.

Falling asleep is easier said than done. Steve is as tired as he’s ever been, but his mind has been quietly roiling with anxiety ever since he realized where he was, and now there’s nothing left to distract him from his thoughts. He didn’t reset. He survived; Bucky saved him, which means that all the events of the past day, all of it really happened, and now Bucky _knows_ , he knows how Steve feels about him.

Steve replays those last delirious moments in his head. He tries not to linger on the guilty sensation of Bucky’s lips against his and searches instead for some sign of Bucky’s reaction, but beyond the kiss his memory is blank. In the face of uncertainty, fear supplies his imagination with humiliating scenarios full of insults and public repudiation, even as he tells himself that Bucky wouldn’t really turn on him like that. The thing is, though, even if Bucky laughs it off and they pretend like it never happened, Steve can’t help imagining the pity in his eyes, the subtle avoidance of physical contact, their familiar, casual intimacy turned cold and stilted. He doesn’t even know which would be worse, outright rejection or slow, silent anguish, and his thoughts drift bleakly from one prospect to the other until exhaustion finally wins out and he sinks into sleep. 

 

 

***

 

 

Steve wakes up, and the first thing he sees is Bucky slumped on a folding chair next to his cot. His hair is disheveled, eyes shadowed and bleary with the look of someone who hasn’t slept all night. He doesn’t immediately notice that Steve is awake, and Steve makes no move to alert him, lying still and quiet and studying Bucky from under his eyelashes. After a minute or two, Bucky looks up and catches Steve watching him, and breaks into a slow, warm smile.

“Good morning, lazybones,” he drawls. “’Bout time you woke up.”

“Well, I had a pretty tiring day yesterday,” Steve points out, raising himself against his pillow.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know you did.” Bucky’s eyes flicker down the length of Steve’s blanket-covered body. “But you’re okay now, right?”

“Leg still hurts a bit, but yeah, I’ll be fine.”

Bucky lets out a long sigh. “Jesus, Steve, you really scared me. Talking about _dying_ like it’s no big deal, what the hell? It’s not like you to just give up like that.”

Steve winces; he’d forgotten about that little slip. “I dunno, I guess I wasn’t thinking too clearly at the end there,” he says weakly.

“Is that so?” 

Bucky searches Steve’s face, his own expression unreadable. Steve meets his eyes as steadily as he can, and eventually Bucky relents and drops his gaze. “Well, you can’t do that again, okay?” he says stiffly. “I can’t lose you, Steve.”

Steve replies, with heartfelt sincerity, “I don’t wanna lose you either, Bucky.” 

He slides his hand across the blanket towards Bucky, and Bucky takes it, holding it clasped between his own. They stay like that for a while, lapsing into a comfortable silence. It feels surprisingly easy, and Steve is starting to think that maybe they’ll be okay after all, when Bucky takes a deep breath and leans forward in his chair.

“Hey, Steve,” he says in a low voice, as if afraid of being overheard. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, what is it?” Steve asks warily.

“There was something else you said yesterday, right before you passed out… do you remember?”

Steve blanches. “I- you know what, actually I’m still kinda tired. Do you think we could talk about this later?”

“No, I think we oughtta talk about it now,” Bucky insists, unmoved by Steve’s obvious discomfort. “You do remember, don’t you? Steve, you have to tell me, did you mean it?”

“It’s nothing, Bucky, just forget about it,” Steve says, turning his face away and trying to pull his hand from Bucky’s suddenly tight grip.

“I don’t think I can do that,” Bucky says, “because if it _is_ true, then I need to tell you… Steve. Stevie, look at me.”

Bucky cups Steve’s jaw and turns Steve to face him. Reluctantly, Steve raises his eyes. His heart is pounding loudly in his ears, and it takes a moment for him to register that Bucky doesn’t look upset, or pitying, he looks- happy. A tentative smile is playing at his mouth, and his eyes are bright, and his whole expression is full of warmth, and hope, and, and-

“I love you too,” Bucky says, and kisses Steve. 

His lips press gently against Steve’s, soft and sweet, while Steve lies frozen in shock. After a moment, Bucky starts to pull away. Then Steve remembers how to move: he grabs Bucky’s collar and hauls him back in, pushing eagerly into the kiss, and it’s clumsy and awkward and wonderful. He can’t help smiling against Bucky’s mouth, and then Bucky is smiling too, and they draw back to gaze at each other.

“You… really?” Steve asks dazedly. “I always thought you liked girls.”

“Well, I thought _you_ liked Agent Carter.”

“Peggy’s amazing. But it’s hard to fall for someone when you’re already in love with someone else. That’s you, by the way.” He traces his fingers down Bucky’s cheek, feeling giddy at his own boldness.

“Yeah, thanks, I got that,” Bucky says wryly. “The part where you kissed me was a pretty big clue. Although you could have said something earlier rather than waiting until you were about to die.”

“So could you,” Steve points out, then shrugs. “But I was scared. I didn’t want to risk losing you.”

Bucky shakes his head in fond exasperation. “Steve, how many times do I have to tell you? You ain’t never getting rid of me.”

“Well, then I guess we’re both just a couple of idiots,” Steve says. “Now, d’you wanna keep arguing, or are you going to kiss me again?”

Bucky grins and leans forward obligingly.

 

 

Too soon, they’re brought back to earth by the sound of a familiar boisterous laugh. When Dum-Dum, Gabe and Dernier enter the room, they find Steve lying quietly in his cot with Bucky in the chair at his side, both looking perfectly calm and composed, if slightly flushed. The men are delighted to find Steve awake and well, and they catch him up on everything he missed, the battle with HYDRA, the hurried return to camp, talking away in a cheerful clamor until a nurse turns up. She shoos everyone away to change the dressing on Steve’s leg and run a few tests, but lets them back in again afterwards, merely requesting that they keep their voices down and try not to disturb the other patients. Word gets out, and Steve ends up with a constant stream of people coming to see him: the Howlies, Peggy, Howard, and dozens of others, some of whom he doesn’t even recognize. Bucky stays with him all day, and even though they don’t manage to find any more time alone together, his mere presence is a joy in itself, every shared glance a thrilling reminder of what passed between them that morning and a promise of things to come.

Steve is discharged the following evening, by which time the only remaining evidence of his injuries is a shiny pink line of newly healed skin and a vague, nagging sense of- absence, perhaps, although of what, he couldn’t say. Not that he wastes much time thinking about it, when he enters his tent that night and finds Bucky there waiting for him.

The next few weeks pass in a daze of bliss. Steve thought he knew everything about Bucky, but now has the pleasure of realizing he was wrong as he discovers for the first time the taste of Bucky’s skin; the clench of his thighs; his gasp of release; and a thousand other precious, tiny details, as they learn each other anew. With no fresh news about the remaining HYDRA forces, they have a rare abundance of free time, and they spend almost every moment of it together, making up for years of missed opportunities. Even when they’re surrounded by other people and have to mask their feelings, everything seems brighter, clearer, more beautiful. It’s springtime, the Allies are winning, and they’re in love: life couldn’t be better.

 

 

Eventually, SSR manages to decrypt some of HYDRA’s radio transmissions using the intel they got from the research facility, and they find out about a train that will be running through the Alps with Dr Zola on board. Steve is thrilled. He’s confident they’ll be able to subdue Zola with little difficulty, and is hopeful that the man will prove more pragmatic than his fellow HYDRA officers and agree to cooperate with them. From there, it’ll just be a matter of time before they can track down Schmidt and put an end to HYDRA once and for all.

It’s exhilarating to be back in action again, with snow crunching under his boots and wind whipping through his hair as they wait on a high outcrop for the train to approach. Bucky is less enthusiastic, but despite his grumbling, the first part of the plan goes off without a hitch. Steve, Bucky and Gabe take off one after the other and zip-line across a dizzying expanse of air before dropping onto the train as it speeds around the mountainside. Once they’re all safely landed, Steve runs carefully across the juddering rooftop until he reaches a ladder, then clambers down the side of the train to let himself on board. Bucky follows close behind.

They’re prepared for a fight, but aside from some racks of munitions the carriage is empty, so, with Bucky covering his back, Steve moves forward and crosses into the next one. A door immediately slams shut behind him. Whirling around, Steve stares at Bucky through the window in the door, but before he can make any move to break it down, he hears the ominous whine of an energy gun powering up, and turns again to be confronted by the masked face of a HYDRA soldier in a gleaming, robotic suit of armor. Steve quickly fires off a few shots with his pistol, then dives for cover behind a stack of metal cases. The energy blast misses him, but the soldier shoots again, and again, keeping Steve pinned in the corner, unable to offer more than the occasional ineffective bullet in return, and all the while their fight is accompanied by the muffled sound of gunfire from the other carriage, where Bucky is.

The situation is getting desperate; Steve needs to do something. He seizes his opportunity in a pause while the energy gun is charging up, jumps out from behind the cases and grabs hold of the cargo hook hanging from the ceiling. Deflecting the energy blast with his shield, he swings forward and kicks the soldier squarely in the chest, knocking him onto his back, then follows it up with a blow to the head. The man falls limp, and Steve hurriedly blasts down the door and rushes out, back to the first carriage, where he’s just in time to help Bucky take out the HYDRA soldier who was about to kill him.

The relief doesn’t last long. They’ve barely caught their breath when Steve hears that telltale whine again, and pulls Bucky behind the shelter of his shield to protect him from a blast from the soldier in the robotic suit, conscious again and lurching towards them. The shot rebounds violently, tearing open the side of the carriage and knocking Steve to the ground, stunned. Raising his head, he watches in horror as Bucky picks up his dropped shield and returns fire, only to be blasted backwards and out, out into the gaping white void. Steve scrambles to his feet in a panic, grabs the shield and hurls it at the HYDRA soldier, then runs to the side of the carriage. He looks out, and hope flares in his chest when he sees that Bucky is still alive, clinging to a railing on the mangled metal flap of wall. 

“Bucky!” he yells, climbing out on another railing, “Grab my hand!” He reaches, Bucky reaches, but then the railing comes loose and Bucky is falling, dropping away into a distant icy chasm while the train speeds onward. Within seconds, he’s no more than a dark speck in the craggy whiteness, and then he’s gone.

It’s too much, too painful, and Steve can’t even bring himself to go back inside, just holds tight to the railing and screws his eyes shut, mind reeling with shock and grief. In the midst of his anguish, the thought occurs to him that he could just let go, release his grip and fall down after Bucky; find him, on the off-chance that he survives, or reset, if not. Reset: the idea is terribly, desperately appealing. He’s never actually done it on purpose, though. For as many times as he’s been called a suicidal idiot, usually by Bucky, Steve has always clung tenaciously to life, through war and sickness and deprivation, and he can’t bring himself to let go now, not in cold blood and with a job still to do. And then, before he can change his mind, Gabe is there, coaxing him back into the train and telling him that they’ve got Zola.

 

 

Everything happens very quickly after that. Steve and the Howlies escort Zola back to base camp, and then to SSR headquarters in London, treating him with scrupulous civility all the while. There’s a certain amount of grumbling about that, once the news spreads about Bucky, but Steve makes it clear that any mistreatment will not be tolerated- they need Zola alive and cooperative, or else what was the point?

Officially, the mission is a success: the first HYDRA agent to be taken in alive, their top scientist and Schmidt’s right-hand man, at the price of a single casualty. The brass are thrilled; the Howlies, decidedly less so. They’re no strangers to death, but it’s the first time they’ve lost one of their own, and there’s not a man among them who doesn’t owe his life to Bucky’s sharp eyes and skillful shooting. They drag Steve out for a drink in Bucky’s honor, and Steve appreciates the gesture, but he’s in no mood for company, so after the first round he grabs a bottle and slinks away to find somewhere to drown his sorrows in solitude. He ends up at the same pub where he went with Bucky the first time they were in London together, now an abandoned, bombed-out ruin. It matches Steve’s feelings perfectly. He pulls up an undamaged chair, pours out a glass, and gives in to his grief.

He resurfaces some hazy amount of time later, exhausted, but calmer than he’s felt for the past two days. His tears have drained all the restless, itchy tension from his body, leaving only a leaden core of sorrow, and any lingering self-pity is swept away soon after Peggy shows up, with her clear-eyed sympathy and the news that Zola has given up everything he knows. 

Colonel Philips lays it all out in an emergency late-night meeting at SSR: Schmidt has a technologically advanced power source hidden away in his last base in the Alps, and the bombs he’s developed with it will wreak untold devastation upon the whole world if his plans are successful. Launch time is in less than twenty-four hours.

Steve sits in silence weighing up the situation, while the rest of them talk back and forth before finally making their way around to the question at hand.

“So what are we supposed to do?” Morita asks. “It’s not like we can just knock on the front door.”

“Why not?” 

Every head turns to look at Steve. 

“That’s exactly what we’re gonna do,” he says, and outlines a plan to get into Schmidt’s base. It’s insanely risky, even for him, but the clock is ticking and no one has any better ideas. Philips grants his approval, and they spend another hour or so hammering out the details before everything is worked out to his satisfaction and the meeting ends.

“Go get some sleep, Rogers, you look like hell,” Philips tells Steve, as he gathers up the files from the table. Everyone else has already scattered, busy passing along orders and making preparations or else gone back to barracks.

“No, I’m fine,” Steve says, still sitting at the table poring over an intel report. “I’ll just be a bit longer, I want to make sure I haven’t missed anything.”

“You’ve been staring at that thing for the past ten minutes, you ain’t gonna learn anything new by looking at it some more. We’ve only got one shot at this and I don’t want it falling apart because you were up all night fretting, so go on and get out of here.”

Steve looks up, frowning. “But I-“

“That’s an order, Rogers.”

“Yes, sir,” Steve mutters. He hands over the report and gets up to leave.

Philips sighs. “Wait,” he says, and rearranges his gruff expression into something approaching concern. “I was sorry to hear about Barnes, by the way. He was a good man, a good soldier.”

Steve’s face crumples, and he closes his eyes for a moment before quietly agreeing, “Yeah, he was.” Faint praise for the best man Steve has ever known, the man he loved, but it’s all he can trust himself to say in this moment.

“It’s a damn shame,” Philips says, shaking his head. “But we’re fighting a war here- these things happen, and there’s no point beating yourself up over it. You’ve just got to pick yourself up and keep on fighting.”

“I am, I’m going to,” Steve says feelingly.

“Then you’d better get your head on straight, or the only thing you’ll be doing is getting yourself killed,” Philips warns. “So go to your quarters and get some rest, and I expect to find you fresh as a daisy tomorrow morning, understand?” 

He looks sharply at Steve, but is evidently satisfied with his brisk, “Yes, sir,” and waves him away.

Steve goes to his room. He doesn’t go to sleep, though, just lies on top of his bed, fully dressed and awake. It’s fine; his body doesn’t need much rest, and in fact he didn’t sleep the previous night either, when he was guarding Zola on the way back to London. What he needs is to focus on the mission and prepare for whatever Schmidt has in store for them tomorrow. That sense of purpose, his determination to see HYDRA destroyed, is all that’s been keeping him going recently, and he holds fast to it now as he lies in the dark running through the planned attack in his mind, assessing weaknesses and devising fallback plans for if things go wrong. He refuses to consider what might happen if things go _really_ wrong; if he gets killed, and resets; if he goes back to the last time he woke up, two days ago, before the train… The idea tugs at him like a siren-song, but it’s too dangerous a hope to indulge in, so Steve pushes it down, and occupies himself instead in analyzing every detail of the battle plan until the darkness fades into dawn.

 

 

It’s a crisp, pale morning when Steve descends on the HYDRA base, roaring through the surrounding forest on his bike and bursting over the wall of the compound to take on the guards in the outer yard. Any tiredness is forgotten in the rush of adrenaline and he fights with reckless abandon, causing as much havoc as he can before the HYDRA soldiers inevitably subdue him.

As anticipated, he’s taken to the command center inside the base for Schmidt gloat over prior to execution. Schmidt is about to pull the trigger when the Howlies come crashing through the windows in a hail of gunfire, providing the distraction Steve needs to overpower his guards. Schmidt turns tail immediately, fleeing down one of the inner corridors while Steve and the Howlies deal with his men, but that doesn’t take long and then Steve is chasing after him, re-armed with his shield and ready to fight.

The base rumbles with the sound of explosions as Allied forces breach the entrances and start pouring in, but Steve pays little attention, dashing through the chaos on Schmidt’s tail. He arrives at a massive hangar in time to see Schmidt board a big, sleek bomber and start accelerating down the runway. For a moment it looks like he’s too late, he’s failed, but then Colonel Philips pulls up in a car, yelling at him to get in, and they race madly down the runway after the plane. Steve crawls out onto the hood of the car and succeeds in hurling himself across to one of the Valkyrie’s wheels just before the ground drops away beneath it. 

Once on board, Steve is delayed by a group of HYDRA soldiers who come clattering through the bomb bay, but he gets rid of them after a few minutes’ struggle and then, finally, he makes his way forward to the cockpit to confront Schmidt.

Now the real fight begins, the one Steve has been waiting for. He quickly disarms Schmidt, knocking his energy cannon to the floor, and they grapple wildly, punching and lunging across the cramped space of the cockpit. Schmidt is stronger, faster and more vicious than any other opponent Steve has faced, and Steve has to push himself to the utmost of his abilities as they each struggle to gain the upper hand. 

They’re still hard at it when a blow from the shield sends Schmidt flying backwards and he crashes against a machine set into the floor in the middle of the room. Something breaks, and the machine erupts in an explosion of light, filling the air with shimmering sparks before subsiding to an intense blue glow that flickers inside a transparent cube, dislodged from the heart of the machine.

“What have you done? No!” Schmidt snarls, seizing the cube. In his grasp, it blazes up again and starts spewing bolts of light, until the crackling air gives way to a vast star-field hanging impossibly over their heads. Steve can only stare in amazement, and then in horror as the burning light of the cube consumes Schmidt’s hand, his arm, his entire body. And then, in a blinding burst of energy, it all disappears, leaving nothing but the still-glowing cube, which promptly falls to the floor and melts through it to drop down into the sea.

Steve can’t even begin to understand what he’s just seen, and he doesn’t bother trying, because the only thing that matters now is stopping the plane before it reaches New York and destroys the entire city. He slides into the pilot’s seat and turns his attention to the flight panel, and is immediately struck with dismay. The Valkyrie’s controls are different to anything he’s seen before in Allied planes, and he doesn’t have a clue how to interpret the bewildering array of switches and dials in front of him, except for the navigation screen in the corner that shows the rapidly narrowing gap between the plane and its target.

With weary resignation, Steve radios back to the HYDRA base, now under SSR control, to tell them what happened with Schmidt. That, and to say goodbye, because Steve already knows what he has to do. There’s no time for him to figure out how to disarm the bombs and land the plane safely, and if he waits any longer he’ll be putting the lives of millions of innocent people at risk. Peggy tries to argue otherwise, but it’s clear that the only option is to put the plane in the water, now, where it won’t harm anyone but himself.

Bracing himself against the seat, Steve takes hold of the control yoke and sends the Valkyrie into a dive.

 _‘This is it,’_ he thinks, as the plane plunges into the clouds, _‘this is the end.’_

He’s had that thought before, but this time it feels final, somehow. So much has happened that it seems inconceivably naïve to think that it could all just be undone, and after all, there must be _some_ limit to his reset ability; perhaps this will be the time that it fails him. That possibility doesn’t scare Steve as much as it might. He’s finished his mission, done everything he was supposed to, everything he could, and it’s a relief, now, to stop, and let it all go.

Wind whips through the cracked window, bitterly cold, but he barely notices, staring fixedly ahead as the last tatters of cloud fall away to reveal the ice below. All he can see is dizzying whiteness, speeding towards him, closer and closer- then there’s a sudden violent shock, and Steve’s last thought before the darkness closes in is that, one way or the other, he’ll be with Bucky again soon.

 

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

*

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

 

Steve wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!! This is the first fic of any real length that I've written, and it's taken me frigging ages but I'm so pleased to have finally finished it. I hope you enjoyed it, and I'd love to hear any comments <3


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